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IU South Bend homepage adapts to mobile devices

Beginning Tuesday, July 1, the IU South Bend homepage will adapt to fit your device whether it is a desktop computer, tablet, or smartphone. Visitors will notice a new layout and new graphics but most importantly they will notice the responsive design that will make viewing and navigating the homepage much easier on a variety of devices.

Responsive design is aimed at providing easy reading and navigation with a minimum of resizing, panning, and scrolling. You will see that the homepage has a more fluid look with proportion-based grids, flexible images, and is built for better navigation with your thumb and finger rather than a mouse.

A project team has been working on developing and implementing the responsive design code and layout for the homepage for nearly a year. The move to responsive design is important for several reasons. Web use is continually changing. People are now doing anything and everything on their mobile devices. For example, the number of high school students with mobile devices who have looked at college websites has doubled in the past two years. The use of mobile devices for almost everything is skyrocketing. The theme for the project team was: think mobile first.

The team is led by Lucas Eggers, manager of website content, and Paul Sharpe, executive director at UITS. Other members are Gary Browning, director of web services, Dan O'Bryant, web developer, Teresa Sheppard, bulletin coordinator, Randal Slisz, web technician, and Ken Baierl, chief of staff and director of communications and marketing. The team will continue to adapt the IU South Bend website to responsive design.